BY FRANCISCO PICADO
HAVANA - Immediately following the presentation of Pombo: A Man of Che's `guerrilla,' was the launching of Seguidores de un sueño (Followers of a dream) by veteran Cuban journalist and war correspondent Elsa Blaquier Ascaño.

The volume, a series of thumbnail sketches of the men and women who fought and died alongside Che in Bolivia, has just been released by Verde Olivo, the publishing house of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba. Based on a series of articles published in the Cuban press throughout the summer and fall of 1997, the book adds significantly to the information available on the political and social roots of the Bolivian, Peruvian, and Cuban combatants who gave their lives fighting to emulate the lessons of the Cuban revolution on a continent-wide basis.

On hand to present the work along with Blaquier were Brig. Gen. Harry Villegas (Pombo) and Leonardo Tamayo (Urbano), both combatants in the Bolivian campaign.

Tamayo is today a retired colonel in the Ministry of Interior. An audience of more than 100 people took part in the event; many lined up afterward to have copies of the new book signed by Pombo, Urbano, and Blaquier.

Blaquier, a retired lieutenant-colonel in the Revolutionary Armed Forces, was a reporter for the army publication Verde Olivo for more than two decades and a correspondent in Angola in 1988 and 1989. Her husband René Martínez Tamayo (Arturo) and brother-in-law José María Martínez Tamayo (Papi) were among those who died in the Bolivia campaign. Blaquier is coauthor of the forthcoming book La guerra inconclusa: Washington vs. Bagdad. (The unfinished war: Washington v. Baghdad).  
 
 
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